Marriage Anchors

"Known"

He knows us far better than we know ourselves...   Romans 8:27 (paraphrased)

It was the 2nd surgery in three months. I sat alone in the hospital getting prepped for surgery. The nurse came in. We'll call her Suzie. She couldn't get my I.V. started in my right arm so we talked as she tried the left arm instead. 

Without warning, I heard the deep, quiet, inner voice of the Holy Spirit speak to me one simple phrase about Suzie. I knew what the Lord wanted me to do with the information. I could feel His total adoration for this lady. He impressed the following phrase on my mind: "Her favorite color is purple and she's an atheist". 

I looked up at Suzie, still trying to get a vein to cooperate for her, she wasn't wearing a lick of purple and yet I knew what I had to do. As an envoy for the Gospel, I gently said "Suzie, may I say something to you without totally scaring you?" She tapped my vein in deep concentration and said, "Sure no problem. Go for it." so I gently said, "Your favorite color is purple, isn't it?" 

Bam, she got my vein set up perfectly, looked up and said, "How would you know that?" To which I kindly replied, "… the same way I know you're an atheist."

“God knows you, Suzie, and He loves you very much. Would you do me a favor and read your Bible tonight and give Jesus a chance to show you His great love for you?” 

Suzie stopped all her nurse work and said, "If He knows me like that. I sure will".

God knows you and not only loves you," but He likes you just the way you are.

“but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ dies for us.”

                                                                                                                      Romans 5:8 ESV

Call on Jesus. He will help you. He really will.

"And anyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved;" Joel 2:32a NIV

By Anne Borgen

If you would like the clear and true Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, click here: https://marriageanchors.com/2012/05/18/your-anchor-dont-leave-port-without-him/

Hey, check out my website, "envoy" with this link: https://annechristineborge.wixsite.com/envoy

"Had God forgotten me?"

"but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint." Isaiah 40:31 NIV

I was in sick in bed many years with depression that led to a culmination of several illnesses.  I fainted frequently and could barely walk. I would lay in bed and watch traffic for something to do. I often cried or slept. I lost most of my friends, pushed everyone away, and went into years of desperation and loneliness.

I felt I was cracking, and that God had forgotten me. I thought, perhaps, He was mad at me.  I hated the verse listed above because it was everything I wasn't. I'd waited years on the Lord and my strength was not renewing. I would profess God's goodness knowing I was being tested but deep down I was desperate for relief. I needed hope.

People who are chronically sick grow weary.  I don’t know of any church ministry entitled,

“We Want You If You're Bedridden"

What company or establishment would hire someone with a résumé requiring years of sick days? I felt totally worthless and burdened.  I couldn’t meet the needs of my husband and daughters. I was emersed in shame.

My help didn't come till much later in God's perfect timing. Every word is true of Isaiah 40:31. God has a uniquely written and timed plan of delivery for every saint of His. He brought me through four doctors, thirty appointments, five medications, surgeries, and a spiritual rehabilitation that came through my parents that I never could've imagined.

In my case, they miraculously found the exact medication regimen to help treat my ailments. God uses the broken, the sick, and the imperfect to confound those who are proud. He sends a message to those people who think they have it all together. “You don’t.”

He loves you right where you're at today. He loves you…the real you…the one who is not even close to being perfect: The one who is weak. The one who is forgotten. The one who is sick. The one who fails. The one who needs a Helping and Saving God.

Sometimes The Lord Jesus will heal or deliver you. Other times He renews your strength and lifts your faith so you can keep soaring, running, or even just walking in this race. If you call on Him, He will show up.

“And everyone who calls on the Name of the LORD will be saved;” Joel 2:32a NIV

Do not give up.

Wait for God. He will renew you. 

By Anne Borgen 

Hey, check out my website, "envoy" with this link: https://annechristineborge.wixsite.com/envoy

Desperate

It was dark outside and cold as I laid in the stretcher shaking uncontrollably from yet another seizure. Something happens to you when your body decides to do something completely out of your control.

My eyes squeezed shut. I could feel the paramedics trying to inject medication into my arm to override my systems malfunction. As arms, legs, and body shook, I remember wishing I could stop it. I was helpless against each passing wave of convulsions. Then a gentle thought hit my mind at exactly the moment I needed: "The Lord is in control even when I've lost all of mine."

In that moment, I felt the most loved by God in all my life. You see, God loves us in our most helpless moments when we're shaken and at the mercy of other helping hands. He loves to love us so that we too can go out and love others in the same way. What a God we have who keeps no debts but that of love.

"Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law." Romans 13:8 NIV

Anne Borgen 2022 

Hey, check out my website, "envoy" with this link: https://annechristineborge.wixsite.com/envoy

I love middle ages castle movies like Robbin Hood and Camelot and those stories where the castle walls are thick and high, the moat deep, and the castle inhabitants safe. At West Point, we studied the History of Military Art and Warfare. Much changed when gun powder came on the scene.

So instead of having to try to scale the high castle wall to get inside to conquer it, the attacking enemy only had to blow a big hole in the wall. Several holes would do the trick. When you mix cannon fire with exploding cannon balls, warfare changed even more so.

The same goes for bows and arrows. Before gun powder, opposing forces often employed bows and arrows and cross bows, some of them with fire. From the Welsh to the English, the long bow was adapted from a hunting to a tactical warfare weapon. Bow warfare was never the same. On August 26th, 1346 during the early part of the Hundred Years War, the Battle of Crecy, Northern France took place.

The French greatly outnumbered the English but the English had the long bow which could fire 10 to 12 volleys a minute to the crossbowman’s 3 to 5 per minute. The long bow could also shoot some 1800 yards! Guess who won? The English did.¹

The enemies of God may surround you today. You may sense the threatening sound of horse’s hooves. You may see the cloud of dust being kicked up in the distance. Fear not! God is on your side! Those enemies need to fear and tremble at the nearing thunder of God’s Armies!

“Now I know that the Lord saves his anointed; he will answer him from his holy heaven with the saving might of his right hand. Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the Lord our God. They collapse and fall, but we rise and stand upright.”  (Psalm 20:6-8 ESV Bold added)

Let’s pray for each other that we would trust the Lord and stand in His uprightness.

¹https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/The-Longbow/

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I have sought many things in my life. Some things have been lofty and virtuous. Some have been rotten and ugly. Who wants to stand up on a table at church, work, or at home and shout, “I’m telling everybody I know…I’m a wretched, stinking, rotten sinner and here are the specific ways I’ve let God and man down!”

Typically, that is not how any of us act. Over the years and with the Spirit of Jesus in me since age 18, He has worked a sanctifying work in me for His glory and ultimately for my benefit and the benefit of others.

I come from a long line of worriers. My mind travels fast sometimes like a humming bird flitting from one flower to the next. In the past, I have collected so many worries in a day’s time, I would get burdened down and exhausted. I would literally have to cast or fling them to the Lord. (1Peter5:7)

“Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”  (Matthew 6:31-33 ESV Bold added)

So I ask myself and I invite you to ask yourself, “What do I seek this day?”

Let’s pray for each other today that He would help each of us to first seek Him and His Word.

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“And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’ And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.” (Mark 4:39 ESV Bold added)

We are in the midst of our next United States presidential election. Covid-19 infections are not going away. There are still many people in our cities and now suburbs who live in fear of the next gun shot or fire set. Wild fires burn out west and storms rage on our coasts. Many businesses are diminished. By all appearances, we, as a nation, are in turmoil. Many of us are angry, fed up, and “fit to be tied!” (Google it)

There are many voices coming at us from so many directions: The Media, friends, political leaders, family, work, church, neighbors, Twitter, Facebook, Podcasts, etc. Life has become, in some situations, uncivil.

Our Lord and Savior Jesus was in the boat with His disciples. They were moving across the Sea of Galilee and there were other boats with him. I wonder who was in these other boats and if they experienced the same concern and fear that the disciples had?

I want to challenge us today (and I’m writing largely to myself on this) to take our eyes off the rancor, division, and fretting that swirls around and drenches us like those tumultuous waves of that sea.

I assume the disciples forgot or failed to trust their Master’s words before they got into the boat; “On that day when evening had come, he said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side.’” (Mark 4:35 ESV Bold added)

What Jesus had done was to promise them that they would get to the other side of the sea. He did not indicate they would drown. The disciples focused on their immediate circumstances and not on their Lord…the One who made that sea, the world, the universe, and them!

Let’s pray for each other that we each embrace Micah 7:7, “But as for me, I will look to the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me.” (Micah 7:7 ESV) He will calm our way. 

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‘2 As is it written in Isaiah the prophet, “Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way, 3 the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”  (Mark 1:2-3 ESV Bold added)

John, the Baptizer, was a true prophet of God who was prophesied about in Isaiah 40:3 and Malachi 3:1 hundreds of years before John or Jesus.

When was the last time you were asked to prepare or straighten anything? I remember preparing for exams in school and preparing for the Obstacle Course at West Point which, to this day, still gives me the shutters!

As a cadet, we had to straighten our rooms on a daily basis. Friday nights we had to really prepare and straighten our beds, uniforms, desks, laundry hampers, shoes, and our socks and underwear drawers. 

Why? Saturday Morning Room Inspection (draws open and staggered) and, later, in ranks inspection zeroing in on the details of our uniforms, haircuts, shaves, rifles, etc. And then we marched in a parade! Of course, we often had classes on Saturday morning as well. Saturday mornings were so much fun…

In this scripture passage, The Prophet-Messenger John, the Baptizer, is said to be one who is “crying”. This does not mean weeping but, rather, it means “to raise a cry, speak with a high strong voice, to implore, to shout out in a tempestuous way.” (David Guzik Commentary www.blueletterbible.org)

In other words, you most likely could have heard him from a distance. During summer training at the Academy, we learned how to shout out loud commands as if we were addressing a great gathering of troops. John was announcing with great volume and vigor that the Lord Messiah, the Christ, was here!

My clear sense is that he was declaring in a rather commanding voice, “He is coming! Turn from yourselves, your fruitless wickedness! Become lowly and humble! Prepare your wondering heart. Straighten your priorities! Get right in your relationships! Your Redeemer is here!”

Let’s pray for each other that God would help each of us repent (turn from self – and turn to Christ), prepare, and straighten our hearts and lives so the Spirit of Jesus may have His way with us. 

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